


what the camera doesn't capture (we'll forget)

by enjolrarses



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, NZ Blood Service, mentions of giving blood, peter is wound up tighter than an anxious spring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4908820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolrarses/pseuds/enjolrarses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He pushed the door open, but only enough to fit his body through, shutting it behind him. Peter was sitting on his bed, chin resting on his knees, dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. His hair was in disarray, and there were tear tracks down his cheeks, past the laugh lines that Balthazar had almost forgotten were there- these days, Peter was either drunk or hungover, but never smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what the camera doesn't capture (we'll forget)

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary for those not living in NZ:
> 
> Whanau: Maori word for 'family', but where I live it is commonly used in schools for what is basically the NZ equivalent of homeroom. I don't know if Auckland schools use it but given that it's not too far from where I live it's a possibility
> 
> Munted: broken

 Balthazar picked at the little white bandage on his arm, wincing every time the hard centre pressed down into the soft inside of his elbow. There was already the start of a bruise blossoming from around it, and he could tell it would be a nasty one. It had hurt more than usual- his blood iron had been on the cusp of making him ineligible to give blood, and the first time they'd tried nothing had happened. There was a matching bandage on the other arm to show it.

 

The door slammed.

 

Peter stomped through the living room to his own room, slamming the door behind him again. Although he’d been touchy lately, this wasn’t a thing that normally happened- at least, not without Ben being involved somehow. Balthazar could admit that out of everyone who had been around for the end of Year 13, Ben and Bea were the only ones that didn’t tiptoe around Peter now; somewhere deep inside, Balthazar knew that he needed it. He was never going to get over what had happened if he kept ignoring it.

 

“Was that Hurricane Peter that just went through?” asked Freddie from the kitchen.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Is he gone?” she asked, coming into the living room. She looked around like he’d just pop up from the back of the couch, like he hadn’t almost knocked the dog pillow off the couch with his door slamming.

 

“Yeah,” Balthazar said again, looking back down at his arms. It had been hard to adjust to not having Peter around him, like he had been when he was just Pedro, All Round Great Guy. Pedro had done the talking, Pedro had introduced him to people. Pedro was his window to the outside world, but now Pedro was Peter, and Balthazar had spent the last six months learning to be Stanley, all on his own.

 

“If he comes out again, can you send him to me? I think I may have irreversibly munted our microwave.”

 

“The microwave, Freddie? Really?”

 

“I know, okay? But I swear, I thought the bowl was microwave safe and I didn’t know it would _melt_ , who makes bowls that melt?” She looked harried, but then again, so did everyone else these days. Wellington was supposed to be a new start, but all it had done was strain the ties between them to the breaking point.

 

“Will do,” he nodded. “Next time, don’t use one of the plastic bowls.”

 

Her face broke into a beaming smile. “Thanks, Stan, you’re the best.”

 

“Yeah,” he said for the third time, looking down into his lap. “You too, Freddie.” He heard her leave, but he didn’t lift his head. Everything seemed louder now, the blood pumping in his ears, the sounds coming from Peter’s room- it sounded like he was kicking something, maybe. Peter wasn’t a violent person, not normally; something was very wrong.

 

Balthazar levered himself off the couch and made his way slowly to Peter's door, knocking on it cautiously. “Pete, mate? You alright?”

 

“Go away.” It was muted, like a video with bad sound. Balthazar wasn’t a betting man, but if he was, he would have bet that Peter was crying.

 

“I’m not going until I know that you’re okay.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Then you'll be fine if I come in."

 

There was a scuffling noise, and a grunt from Peter. "Yeah, whatever."

 

He pushed the door open, but only enough to fit his body through, shutting it behind him. Peter was sitting on his bed, chin resting on his knees, dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. His hair was in disarray, and there were tear tracks down his cheeks, past the laugh lines that Balthazar had almost forgotten were there- these days, Peter was either drunk or hungover, but never smiling.

 

“You’re not fine.”

 

Peter laughed bitterly. “No shit, Sherlock.”

 

Balthazar winced. “Yeah, that was a stupid thing to say.” He settled himself next to him, close but not quite touching. “You know you can talk to us, don’t you? We’re your friends, it’s what we’re here for.”

 

“Yeah,” said Peter. It felt like the worst kind of reversal- Peter nonverbal, Balthazar struggling to fill the silence. Ever since they’d met in whanau class at Messina High, it had been Pedro that had drawn Balthazar out of his shell, but now- now, everything was messed up.

 

They sat in silence for a while, feeling the weight of things left unsaid pressing on their chests like the worst kind of pain. Peter's discomfort was tangible, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with Balthazar's presence- Balthazar thought that it might have been this way for a while, Peter walking a tightrope of anxiety and pain with no one there to catch him if he fell. His support network back at Messina had dissolved with John's betrayal, and he was still beating himself up over what he'd done to Hero; people had broken down over way less. It was a testament to his strength that he was still standing now.

 

The tension in the room lessened the longer they let themselves sit there together. Peter let himself relax, one limb at a time, until he was slumped against Balthazar's side, his face tucked into the crook of his neck. Balthazar could feel his breath, hitching with silent sobs every so often; he could feel songs running through his head, lyrics forming themselves out of his own jumbled feelings that had never really gone away.

 

Eventually, Peter spoke. "They wouldn't let me give blood."

 

"What?"

 

"They wouldn't let me give blood. It's in the rules, you can't give blood if you've had sex with another man in the past twelve months, and, well..." His laugh was as self-deprecating as it had never been at Messina. "I've been giving blood since I was sixteen. It was the one thing that hadn't changed from back then, the one thing I still have from when I was _good_ , and now it's gone."

 

Balthazar slung an arm around his back, pulling him closer. Peter's form dwarfed him, but he seemed so small in that moment. “You’re still good, Pete.”

 

“That’s bullshit, Balth, and you know it,” he spat. “After what I did? I can’t ever be good again. That’s not me anymore.” He yanked his head up, eyes looking raw and bruised. “I’m not that guy. I hurt them, Balthazar, I hurt _everyone_. I hurt _you_. How can you say that, after what happened?”

 

“What do you mean? It wasn’t me you hurt. And you know that Hero forgave you as soon as you admitted you were wrong.”

 

“It’s not just Hero! Yeah, I talked shit about her. I talked shit and I fucked up and I’ll always be ashamed of how I acted. But she wasn’t the only one that I hurt. I refused to listen to Ben or Bea, I tried to hurt them both with that _stupid_ plot, I didn’t stop Claudio from making a scene, I didn’t bother to get anyone else’s story beforehand. Hell, I’d been hurting my own _brother_ for years, and I didn’t even notice. And then, after all that- after I realised what I’d done- I still ignored you, and hurt you, and I didn’t think about what we could be, or how you felt, only about how scared I was. And that isn’t right, Balth, you know it isn’t.”

 

Balthazar let out a breath, letting the back of his head hit the wall behind him. “It hurt a bit, yeah, but you know that hurts more to see you hurting, don’t you?”

 

Peter let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “You’re just so- I dunno, Balthy, how do you do it?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“You’re so _good_ , more than I ever was. It’s natural, it’s _you_ , everything you are. It’s not an act. If everything changed today, you’d still be good.”

 

“Good’s so abstract, though,” said Balthazar, gazing up at the ceiling.  “What makes a person good? Everyone’s fucked up once or twice, Peter. You’d have to be a god not to. I'm not perfect."

 

"Sometimes I think you are." Peter said, leaning his head into his knees.

 

Balthazar stilled. "You can't say that shit, Peter."

 

"I know."

 

"You just- you have to let it go, okay, you have to give me time to get over you, because you're always here and it's never going to happen otherwise." His fist clenched in Peter's covers and now he was the one who was going to cry.

 

Peter looked up. "But you already have."

 

"You can't tell me how I feel, Peter. You can dictate everything else, but not that."

 

"No, you- when I asked you out, you turned me down!" His face was red, like a tired tomato. Balthazar was sure his matched.

 

"When the hell did you ask me out?"

 

"I asked you if you wanted to go to town with me, and you asked if Freddie and Ben were going!"

 

"I didn't know you meant on a date!"

 

"What else would it be?" They weren't yelling, but they were being loud enough that the whole flat probably knew what was going on. If Freddie wasn't listening at the door, Balthazar wasn't a musician.

 

"Going out? Like friends do?" He hissed, making a gesture with his hand that he hoped signalled _keep it down_. "I didn't think you were _interested in me_. I thought that was why you ignored it last year!"

 

That stopped him in his tracks. "Oh. Well, I do. Like you, I mean."

 

"You do."

 

"Yeah. Do you wanna, you know, go on a date with me? Sometime?" He looked nervous, like it wasn't a given that Balthazar would say yes. "We could walk along the waterfront, maybe, you liked that."

 

"Yeah," smiled Balthazar. "Yeah, I'd like that." He brought a hand up to rest on Peter's cheek. "I do like you, you know. A lot."

 

Peter's eyes were wide as he moved forward. "Yeah?"

 

"Yeah."

 

The kiss seemed almost inevitable, like there was no other way for their conversation to go- like this was the culmination of all those years pining, years spent wanting what he thought he could never have. Balthazar could taste the salt of Peter's tears on his lips, and he kissed them in apology for what he'd gone through alone- for what he'd thought he couldn't ask for. It was soft and awkwardly sweet, teeth clacking together and hands held away from their bodies, like they didn't know if they could touch.

 

There was a bang as the door crashed open, and they jumped apart.

 

"No shenanigans!" said Freddie, looking smug, Ben by her side with that _fucking_ camera. “I can’t _wait_ to come up with a punishment for this one.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i gave blood like a month ago and idk what it's like where you live, but in nz before you give blood you have to fill out a questionnaire about whether you've been sick or had a tattoo, and a rather large part of it is devoted to your sex habits. and i was reading it and thinking NMTD thoughts at the same time and i just had this thought that as touchy as peter is about the All Round Great Guy thing, he probably has given blood and would continue to give blood if it weren't for the fact that he is probably not allowed to do do anymore. 
> 
> so then i wrote this the next day and promptly forgot about it for a whole month :)
> 
> my tumblr is at [startrekkinacrosstheuniverse](http://startrekkinacrosstheuniverse.tumblr.com) but there's like 0 NMTD. sorry about that.


End file.
